Konami Removing 31 Games From Mobile Stores

metal gear touch — "Metal Gear Solid Touch" is one of the many mobile titles Konami will be pulling from the App Store. https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/metal-gear-solid-touch-us

Konami recently announced that it would be pulling most of the company’s mobile games from the iTunes App Store. A total of 31 mobile titles will be removed from the Apple online store soon. Most of the games Konami is removing are paid apps, so some of the company’s free-to-play mobile games may be safe from being removed.

According to Kotaku, the decision was made to remove these apps since they will not be compatible with the upcoming iOS 9 for Apple devices. Konami also stated that most of the games would not be receiving updates to play in the new iOS software, so fans of these Konami games might not want to update their system right away.

The list of the games getting removed includes “Bomberman Touch,” “Metal Gear Solid Touch" and “Silent Hill: The Escape." A number of the titles getting removed were exclusive to the Japanese version of the iTunes App Store, while a number of them were available worldwide.

It seems like the games staying in the App Store are the free-to-play ones, since they make a good amount of money for Konami. Touch Arcade confirmed that “Star Wars: Force Collection” would be safe from the massive online sweep. This makes sense, given how popular the franchise is, especially with a new movie on the way.

A few months ago, Sega also decided to remove most of its games from the iTunes App Store. The company did not give a proper reason for removing the games, though it was stated that some of the titles might be making a comeback. Most of the games spared were “Sonic the Hedgehog” games.

This seems like an odd approach from Konami, as the company recently announced that it would focus on mobile gaming from now on, since a lot of the company’s income comes from the in-app purchases from free-to-play mobile games. The move is very similar to Square Enix, a company that also decided to focus on mobile gaming after the success of its mobile titles.

It is possible that Konami is removing these titles to make room for new ones in the future. Whether this is the case or not, fans of the company’s games will have to wait till the next iOS comes in order to see what is in Konami’s mobile future.